Meet the AI Mayor

Interactive theatre to experience autonomous decision making.

2017 | Speculative Design

Summary

How would an AI mayor govern the city?

In the future city of Amsterdam, the AI Mayor decides everything based on the massive data gathered from the city. However, today he is stuck with a choice. Which group of citizens he should favour — the elderly or the young? The calculated profit for the city is the same for both outcomes. The confused AI Mayor asks the citizens in the room for an "ethical input"...

In the field of AI, there is a growing awareness of the ethical implications of autonomous decision making. In a kind of conundrum – in which there is no quantifiable “right” solution, and different kinds of harm need to be weighed against each other – Whose ethical values should AI consider important? And if it did…would we even know why the AI made the decision? We engage the participants to experience the problem of “Black boxing” and “Trolley problem” through an open dialogue with the AI Mayor.